Short notes and essays about stuff that interests me (mostly technical stuff).

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Fare Thee Well, Chicago day one

Reports are in from the first night in Chicago, and it sounds like it was a wonderful show

The setlist hits some big highlights for me: Scarlet Begonias, Jack Straw, Box of Rain, Bertha are all personal favorites, and the long jazzy selection from Blues for Allah must have been just marvelous.

Beyond the shows themselves is a full calendar of ancillary events and expenses, a schedule to rival SXSW. Every jam band west of the Mississippi is coming into town to play… pre-parties, after-parties, and all the live-streaming parties to boot. And named for the 1978 Grateful Dead album and eponymous song, “Shakedown Street” will be the crowded, bacchanalian bazaar that inevitably pops up in the parking lots, where you can buy or trade anything

Long before it became necessary (or cool) to do so, the band embraced a DIY ethos in everything from manufacturing its own gear to publishing its own music to fostering a decentralized music distribution system. The Dead’s obsession with technology was almost inseparable from the band’s psychedelic ambition and artistic independence.

When we had only equations to present, we were nearly universally ridiculed. When we built and demonstrated a manned cart beating the wind, people complained we had no theory to back it up. To this end another friend offered, “Sure it works in practice – but can you prove it works in theory?”

Hey, it's a beautiful day (Happy 4th of July!); now go find a copy of American Beauty and put it on, and sing along with a friend.